 Section 48 of the Code of Hammurabi (translated by Leonard William King, 1910). Alternately translated as: If a man owe a debt and Adad inundate his field and carry away the produce, or, though lack of water, grain have not grown in the field, in that year he shall not make any return of grain to the creditor, he shall alter his contract-tablet and he shall not pay the interest for that year.

 Attributed to Abraham Lincoln in Joseph Gilbert Holland, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (1886), p. 237; reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989). This comment was alleged to have been made in a private conversation with Newton Bateman, superintendent of public instruction for the state of Illinois, a few days before the election of 1860. During the election of 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy recited this in a speech to the United Steelworkers of America convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey (September 19, 1960), as reported in Freedom of Communications (1961), final report of the Committee on Commerce, United States Senate, part 1, p. 286. Senate Rept. 87–994. As president, Kennedy used a variation of these words at the 10th annual presidential prayer breakfast (March 1, 1962). Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962, p. 176.